Today was one of those heaven and hell kind of days. It started in a little town called Reims. This town in our original Europe route would see us cross it twice. Let us say, we never want to see that broken down cess-hole again!

We started out in a launderette, by which we might as well have put our money into a pokie machine. It is always a gamble whether we pick the right machine to use. Sometimes we're lucky, but other times (a bit like in Cornwall) we’ll just have to keep feeding coins into the busted contraption. It seemed, perhaps not always, but in this particular time, the whole city was in mayhem because all the roads were, how-do-you-say? Being replaced. This was a spiraling nightmare for a foreign driver and the French drivers on the roads are, how-do-you-say? A bunch of arrogant fagelers

The day did turn out awesome though when we eventually escaped Reims. In the countryside we found this awesome farmers market where instead of being like a green grocer, we got to go out in the crop plots and cut our own produce straight out of the soil! We spent heaps of time in the berry fields, eating and collecting fresh ripe strawberries and raspberries. They were so sweet and fresh!

After a little lunch of frommage and berries beside a vineyard we headed off randomly to find water for bigwig and a place to stay. What we found was a cute little medieval city called Laon, which as we soon found out had one of the most spectacular cathedrals we have yet seen. The "old" town itself was literally impossible for bigwig to manage as all the narrow, run-down cobble streets rose and fell so dramatically, it was difficult enough to walk it, let alone drive it. The town was how we imagined France should be like, old and over designed, with elaborate but unkempt architecture. And even if their drivers are a bunch of tossers, you got to hand it to the French.